How did the Phoenix Suns do on deadline day? Experts weigh in
Feb 20, 2015, 2:42 PM | Updated: 2:44 pm
The Phoenix Suns were key players in one of the craziest trade deadline days the NBA has seen in years.
The Suns traded five players, including point guards Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas, acquired another young point guard in Brandon Knight from the Milwaukee Bucks, a veteran scoring threat in Marcus Thornton from Boston and picked up three first-round draft picks in the process. They did trade the first-round pick of the Los Angeles Lakers, which is a valuable building block. That selection ended up with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Not surprisingly, the reviews on how the Suns’ front office of Lon Babby and Ryan McDonough did in their dealings were mixed.
Here’s some of the national reaction to what the Suns accomplished Thursday.
• Matt Moore of CBS Sports gave the Suns four stars (out of five).
The Suns may have taken a step backward, but they also managed their long-term flexibility and put together a deal to bring in multiple picks, cap relief, and a guy shooting over 40 percent from three this season in high-usage situations and who was the next alternate up for the All-Star team in Brandon Knight.
They were backed into a corner by Dragic, and their handling of that situation might have been a two-star affair, but they managed to worm out of it pretty well. Giving up the Lakers pick is a drag, but they picked up Cleveland’s pick from Boston. Clearing out Isaiah Thomas is a tough decision but it’s probably for the best considering chemistry. The Suns have a good present and a great future, and their trades Thursday got them out of a jam.
• In an ESPN Insider piece, Kevin Pelton praised the Dragic deal for the Suns, giving it a B-plus.
Whether this scenario was better than re-signing Dragic is a different matter, though I’m not sure a team with as many young players as Phoenix should necessarily be giving a 29-year-old player a five-year max deal. In the end, getting picks for Dragic might be for the best.
Kudos to Suns GM Ryan McDonough for getting Miami to give up an unprotected 2021 first-round pick. It’s possible that McDonough won’t even be around to see that pick in six years, but it has the chance to be a major boon to the franchise.
Pelton also gave a high grade for the Suns’ trade with the Bucks that landed Knight.
• Brett Pollakoff of ProBasketballTalk.com was a big fan of what the Suns did Thursday, giving them A grades for the Dragic and Knight deals and a mark of B for the trade of Thomas to Boston.
This deal was the rare win-win, especially when taking into consideration the other moves that Phoenix made as a result. The Suns also dealt Isaiah Thomas to rid themselves of the three point guard issue that caused Dragic to want out in the first place, and acquired a legitimate replacement for Dragic in the form of Brandon Knight, who was a borderline All-Star for the Bucks this season, and will cost Phoenix much less to re-sign in restricted free agency this summer.
• Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports was a little less jazzed about the Suns’ activity, giving it a C-minus.
The Suns were in a tough spot with Goran Dragic’s outright trade demand. They were never going to get equal value for his 2015 services, even if Dragic were signed until 2019. The future free agent is not signed until then, so nabbing two future first-rounders from Miami was impressive enough.
Giving up on Thomas so soon into his tenure with the Suns for what will be a lower-rung first-rounder from the championship-contending Cavaliers, though, seems like a miss. And while it’s good to appreciate Knight’s gifts, he is a restricted free agent this year, and that L.A. first-rounder could eventually turn out to be something special.
And finally, Charles Barkley of TNT weighed in on the Dragic deal during Thursday night’s broadcast. He didn’t like it, and hasn’t been a fan of how McDonough has handled his personnel going back to last summer.
“They’re in the exact same situation. They screwed up their team this summer bringing in Isaiah Thomas,” Barkley said. “They knew Bledsoe is a good player, they had to pay Dragic at the end of this season and then they bring in Thomas and draft a point guard (Tyler Ennis).
“They screwed this entire thing up. And I like Brandon Knight, he’s a good player, but he’s just like Dragic and Thomas. So now you’ve still got a bunch of little guys out there playing. They just really screwed up.”
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